Moodle was developed to assist faculty with managing classroom resources and as a way to foster more collaboration among their students. However, many Lafayette offices and student organizations find Moodle to be useful because it allows them to easily share information among their members.

Note: most of the configuration changes described in this guide can be done only by site members assigned the role of Teacher or Leader.

Why might I use Moodle within my department or student organization?

• Forums allow for the beginning or continuation of a dialog among their members.
• Choice allows an organization to quickly poll members of its Moodle site about a topic.
• Files used by an organization can be easily accessed.
• Wikis allow group members to write collaboratively online.

How do I establish a Moodle site?

A department head or student organization faculty advisor can send a request to Courtney Bentley at bentleyc@lafayette.edu. The request should include a brief description of how you envision using Moodle within your office or organization.

How do I get help?

• Visit the help documentation page at http://its.lafayette.edu/help/moodle.
• Contact Jason Alley (alleyj@lafayette.edu, x5884) or Courtney Bentley (bentleyc@lafayette.edu, x5504).

Moodle Instructions

Accessing your Moodle Site(s)

1. Go to http://moodle.lafayette.edu to login. We recommend using the Mozilla Firefox browser (rather than Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Safari) to access and work with Moodle. If you don't already have Firefox, you may download it from the Mozilla Web site.
2. Enter your Network ID and password in the "Login" box and click the [Login] button.
3. Once logged in, you will see a list of all of the courses of which you are a member within the "My courses" box located on the left.
4. Click the course you wish to enter.

Editing your Moodle Site Settings

Within the Moodle Administration Settings Teachers and Leaders can change things like the format of the Moodle site, the number of weeks or topics, and availability status. To access Moodle Administration Settings:

1. Click Settings within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Adjust your settings. A few prominent settings are described below:
   • Short name: DO NOT CHANGE the Short Name of your Moodle site.
   • Format: The Format options allow you display your Moodle site in a Weekly, Topics, or Social format. Most Moodle sites tend to use either the Weekly or Topics format.
   • Number of weeks/topics: This option allows you to specify the number of week or topic blocks that should display down the middle of your Moodle site.
   • Availability: By default all Moodle sites are created with the Availability set to "This course is not available to students." This prevents your Moodle site from displaying on any Moodle course list, except of course for the teacher or administrator of the course. When you're ready to make your Moodle site available to its members, change this setting to "This course is available to students."
3. Click the [Save changes] button.

Managing your Moodle site membership

For student organizations, site membership management will ultimately lie with the faculty advisor. Student leaders will be assigned the role of Leader giving them full administrative access to the Moodle site, but they will be unable to enroll anyone to comply with FERPA.

To add a user manually:

1. Click Assign roles within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Click the type of member role you wish to assign. You will most likely use one the following role types: Teacher, Leader, Member, Guest Collaborator, or Guest.
3. In the Search field located below the list of Lafayette users, enter all or part of the name of the person you wish to add. Click the [Search] button.
4. Select the correct name from the box on the right, then click the left-pointing arrow to add that name to the list on the left.

To allow for self-enrollment:

All student organizations will need to allow students to self-enroll since student Leaders will be unable to enroll members themselves. Students will be prompted to enroll in the course upon their first visit. However, faculty advisors, which will be assigned the Teacher role, will still be able to manually enroll members.

1. Click Settings within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Scroll to the "Enrollment" section and set the "Course enrollable" to either Yes or Date range.
3. If using Date range set the "End date" and/or the "Start date."

To remove a user:

1. Click Assign roles within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Select the name you wish to remove from the box on the left, then click the right-pointing arrow to remove that name from the list on the left.

Editing your profile

All Moodle site members have the ability within their profile to include a description of themselves, a custom picture, and even display some specialty contact information such as AIM or Skype account names. To make these and other types of profile changes:

1. Click your name on the top right of the page next to the Logout link.
2. Your profile will display, showing the information others can see about you. Click the [Edit profile] tab to edit your profile. You may need to click the [Show Advanced] button to display additional information.
3. Click the [Update profile] button.

Uploading files

Moodle allows Teachers and Leaders to store a variety of types of files on the Moodle server that you can later link to within your Moodle site. Example file types include PDF files, Word documents, images, Powerpoint presentations, audio files, video files, and Flash animations. While your files "live" on the server, you can move, rename, replace, or delete them. You can even organize them into folders and sub-folders.

Note: Files can be no larger than 50MB each.

To add files to your default folder:

1. Click Files within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Click the [Upload a file] button located near the bottom right.
3. Click the [Browse] button to search for the file you wish to upload.
4. Check the box to the left of the file name(s) you wish to upload.
5. Click the [Upload this file] button.

To create a sub-folder:

1. Click Files within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Click the [Make a folder] button located near the bottom left.
3. Type the name of your new sub-folder in the field provided.
4. Click the [Create] button.

To add files to a sub-folder:

1. Click Files within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Click the name of the sub-folder listed in your Files page.
3. Click the [Upload a file] button located near the bottom right.
4. Click the [Browse] button to search for the file(s) you want to upload.
5. Check the box(es) to the left of the file name(s).
6. Click the [Upload this file] button.

To move files to a different folder:

1. Click Files within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Check the box(es) to the left of the file name(s) you want to move.
3. Select the Move to another folder option located in the drop-down menu near the bottom left.
4. Click the name of the sub-folder to which you want to move your file(s).
5. Click the [Move files to here] button to move the file(s).

To delete files and/or sub-folders:

Note: sub-folders must be empty to be deleted.

1. Click Files within the "Administration" box on the left.
2. Check the box(es) to the left of the file name(s) and/or sub-folder name(s) you want to delete.
3. Select the Delete completely option located in the drop-down menu near the bottom left.
4. Click [Yes] to confirm deletion.

Adding and editing content

Most of the content within a Moodle site will be created in the main section, which displays down the middle column. Content can be added as either a Resource or as an Activity. Resources allow Moodle site members to view content while Activities allow Moodle site members to interact in some manner. Below are brief descriptions of some of the more popular Resources and Activities:

Link to a file or web site (Resource)

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add a resources…" drop-down menu, select Link to a file or web site.
3. Name your link in the "Name" field.
4. Either enter the full URL of the Web page you want to link to or click the [Choose or upload a file…] button to link to a file within your Moodle site or to add a new file, as follows:
   1. Click the [Upload a file] button located near the bottom right.
   2. Click the [Browse] button to search for the file you want to upload.
5. Check the box to the left of the file name(s) you want to upload.
6. Click the [Upload this file] button.

Link to a directory (Resource)

Moodle allows you to include a link to a directory from your Files. This feature might be used to provide easy access to agendas, minutes, or budget information. To link to a directory:

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add a resources…" drop-down menu, select Display a directory.
3. Name your directory in the "Name" field.
4. From the "Display a directory" section, select from the drop-down menu the directory you want to display. Note that selecting "Main folder" will give all users access to everything in the files area.
5. Click the [Save changes] button.

Choice (Activity)

Choice can be used to quickly get feedback about one item from your Moodle site members (e.g., selecting the most desirable date for a retreat). Each member can "vote" only once. To create a Choice activity:

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add an activity…" drop-down menu, select Choice.
3. Provide your Choice activity with a name and question or statement to which people can respond.
4. Within each of the Choice boxes (e.g., Choice 1, Choice 2) type a potential choice selection in the Choice fields. Some optional selections include:
   • Hiding a choice after it's been selected.
   • Restricting submissions to a particular time period.
   • Displaying results never, before, or after members make their choice.
5. Click the [Save changes] button.

Feedback (Activity)

Feedback is a survey tool that can be used to gather information from your Moodle site members.

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add an activity…" drop-down menu, select Feedback.
3. Provide your Feedback activity with a name and description. Some optional selections include:
   • Recording members' names with their Feedback results.
   • Restricting submissions to one per person.
   • Customizing the confirmation page participants receive after submitting their Feedback.
4. Click the [Save changes] button.
5. Click the [Edit questions…] tab to begin adding questions.
6. From the "Add question to activity" section drop-down menu, select the type of question you want to add.
7. If necessary, click the [Add question to activity] button.
8. After completing the question options, click the [Save Question] button.

To view Feedback results:

1. Click the Feedback activity.
2. Click the [Show Responses] tab.
3. Beside the member or entry whose responses you want to view, click the [Show Responses] button.
4. To download all of the Feedback responses as an Excel file, click the [Analysis] tab then click the [Export to Excel] button.

Forums (Activity)

Forums, also known as discussion or bulletin boards, allow members to post new discussion topics as well as to respond to others' topics and forum posts. To create a Forum activity:

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add an activity…" drop-down menu, select Forum.
3. Provide your Forum with a name and a description. Some optional selections include:
   • Selecting a forum type.
   • Requiring all members to receive all responses via email.

Forums are explained more at http://its.lafayette.edu/help/moodle/forums.

Wikis (Activity)

Wikis allow members within your Moodle site to collaborate on documentation and ideas online. Essentially, wikis are online places to write a shared document where all members have equal access to add, remove, or change the content. To create a new Wiki activity:

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the "Add an activity…" drop-down menu, select Wiki.
3. Begin adding content in the inline Web editor.
4. Click the [Save] button when finished.

To add new wiki pages:

1. Click the name of the wiki.
2. Click the [Edit] tab.
3. Place your cursor where you want the link to your new wiki page to appear. Type and enclose the name of the link to the new page in square brackets (e.g., [My new page]).
4. Click the [Save] button when finished.

Adding the Quickmail block

The Quickmail block allows Teacher, Leader, and Member roles to send email messages to other Moodle site members from within the Moodle site.

1. Click the [Turn editing on] button located in the upper right under your name.
2. From the drop-down menu within the "Blocks" box select Quickmail.

Adding Calendar events

1. Located on the right side, click the month and year link located just above the calendar grid.
2. Click the [New Event] button.
3. Choose the Type of Event and click [OK]. Note that course events will be displayed to all site members.
4. Provide a name, description, and a date and/or duration for the event.

Editing icons to know

• Edit: click this icon to edit whatever it is beside.
• Open Eye: click this icon to hide an item from your Moodle site members.
• Closed Eye: click this icon to reveal a hidden item to your Moodle site members.
• Up/Down Arrows: click these icons to move an item up or down.
• Help: click this icon to view a help window.

Switching roles

When logged in as a Teacher it is possible to view your Moodle site as other member types (e.g., Member or Guest). This feature can be helpful when you want to quickly see how your Moodle site will appear to others.

1. From the "Switch role to…" drop-down menu located on the right side of the red bar, select the type of role you wish to preview.
2. To return to your original role click the [Return to my normal role] button also located on the right within the red bar.